Private Nova Scotia daycares warn of closures

Ten-dollar-a-day daycare is supposed to make things easier for parents but some private operators are warning they may be forced to close.

“We have done a poll with our private operators and we're close to the 25 per cent range of looking to close within the next 12 months,” said Lisa Beddow, who owns six private daycares across Halifax Regional Municipality and Colchester County.

Beddow points out that fees have been frozen for years and now that many are facing rising food and fuel costs, more operational money is needed.

Beddow said daycares are exploring if they should close or operate outside of the grant model and charge their own rates.

“Which could be upwards of 60 to 70 dollars a day,” she tells CTV. “So that's what we'd need to be able to pay these wages, so a two-tiered system.”

Earlier this month, Nova Scotia announced a new wage framework that would up the pay for daycare workers but some argue those raises still fall short.

“We have a major staffing crisis in this province,” said Nikki Jamieson with Child Care Now. “And the fact that government promised a minimum living wage in the operations plan that's directly written into the agreement and failed to deliver on that promise should be top of mind.”

Early childhood educators will be paid more depending on experience. Level one ECE’s will now be paid $19.10 an hour instead of $15 while Level 3 workers will get a pay bump from $19 to 21.67.

A not for profit daycare in Halifax’s north end that serves the military recently announced it will close at the end of March due to staffing levels.

"Not having enough trained staff directly affected our ability to provide a consistent and reliable service to families,” Bridget Ebsary said in a statement about the decision to close the Windsor Park location of The Halifax & Region Military Family Resource Centre. “On any given day, our Windsor Park Children’s Centre is one staff absence from having to turn multiple families away at drop-off, despite the exhaustive efforts that were made to actively recruit and retain ECE staff.”

Becky Druhan, Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, points out the province has invested more than $100 million to pay workers more and that the province is at the table with parents and daycares.

“An operational funding model is one of those things that's the next priority,” Druhan said. “We look forward to working with that table and others in the sector to be able to deliver on that.”

Minister Druhan also said there are many operators who are supportive and thankful of the work that’s being done.

“We know this is a huge change. Change is not easy,” she said. “For any individual operators who are particular challenged in any way, we work together with them to try to support them.”

Druhan noted the challenges this sector is experiencing with workforce and inflationary pressures are not because of this ongoing transformation.

“The transformation we are doing is to address those issues,” Druhan said.